Dear, Time.

no resolution

Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash

Dear Time,

I’d love to understand you more intimately. Do you want to be friends?

 It feels like you’re always running. 

Always playing peekaboo. 

Always letting me eat the last chip before I realize there are no more in the bag. 



Sometimes you show up and leave in a blink 

and other times you linger. 



What makes you go? 

     What makes you stay? 

              When I wake up tomorrow —for you, does it even feel like a new day? 

If you’re forever, do moments even change? 

         Do you feel yourself         s   t    r   e   t    c    h — does it tickle? 


Do you ever intentionally play games? 

Do you favor some more than others? 

Draw near and then retreat? 

Do you even care about days based on numbers? 

Do you ever experience defeat?

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Time, I’ve often feared you.

 I was taught you were running out…

That you were coming for daddy 

because he’s drinking on the couch. 

Time, do you remember how many times I ran home,

after school instead of walking, thinking

 if I didn’t go faster, he might die all alone?

Time, do you recall all the times I laid in bed

as a teenager praying 

that I’d get married before he was dead?

---

Time—

 do you want to be my friend?

I can’t always tell

Maybe, if you let me know you

I wouldn’t have to live under your spell

Maybe we could walk in harmony

in a garden that bloomed and grew

or are you the garden

and I’m just an insect passing through?

---

Are you ever tender towards me?

Do you ever reach out a hand?

Maybe set the sun a little early

So little me could hear the yelling end?

---

I remember seeing myself in diapers

looking in the mirror

watching from outside my body

as if the view was clearer

were you with me in that moment

 as the one in the crib

or were you with me in awareness

 while I watched that little kid

---

Were you everywhere at once?

 - there with me, watching, and now?

Are you already with the me

that’s going to read this aloud? 

---

Time, you’re so perplexing

I really wish I knew

if I knew you more deeply

would it help me to get through



Are there locusts that eat you

or do you vanish just for fun

do you ever tire, get scared — run?



Some days are like fire

like smoke passing through

and some memories they burn

like they’re still living in the room

---

If you’re stretched out always
— then, does that mean…
that the me that is here living
is really in a dream?

---

Well, thank you for listening
however, it is that you hear
When I'm ready to ask more questions
I know you'll already be right here
Even when you hide -- you never disappear
and maybe that's why I draw near. 

Love, 
every version of me, Steph. 

p/s i really want to love you. 
p/p/s please be my friend.

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